Frozen Shoulder can be painful without proper treatment

Today, we going to discuss something called "frozen shoulder," something that few people have heard about unless you’ve experienced it. But if you'v had frozen shoulder or know some who has, you know it can be very debilitating.


A frozen shoulder is a shoulder joint with significant loss of its range of motion in all directions. The range of motion is limited not only when the patient attempts motion, but also when someone attempts to move the joint fully while the patient relaxes. A frozen shoulder is also referred to as “adhesive capsulitis.” It actually affects more than 9 million people annually – about 2 percent of the population.

Ask a dozen people what causes frozen shoulder and you will probably get a dozen answers. They could all be both right and wrong at the same time. Meaning that what caused the condition in one person may not be the same cause in another person.

 

Some of the various suspected instigators of this disease are previous injury to the general shoulder area, Hormonal imbalances, especially in the thyroid gland, Repetitive motion or strain without proper stretching and rest, Frozen shoulder is the result of inflammation, scarring, thickening, and shrinkage of the capsule that surrounds the normal shoulder joint. Any injury to the shoulder can lead to frozen shoulder, including tendinitis, bursitis, and rotator cuff injury. Frozen shoulders occur more frequently in patients with diabetes, chronic inflammatory arthritis of the shoulder, or after chest or breast surgery. Long-term immobility of the shoulder joint can put people at risk to develop a frozen shoulder. There are more, but you get the idea.

Earlier, I stated that frozen shoulder pain is one of the most common shoulder conditions and one of the most disabling. It owes its name to the fact that the sufferer has the affected shoulder range of motion severely limited. Typically the person affected has trouble reaching up for cupboards, shampooing, steering the car wheel and so on. This is made even worse by the long recovery times to regain full range and mobility.

 

While the cause of frozen shoulder pain is largely debated among various health professionals and lay people, there is agreement of the progression.

• Stage one: A freezing phase; Symptoms being acute pain, tending to be worse at night making sleep hard if not impossible. Range of motion has not yet become restricted much, if at all.
• Stage two: A frozen phase; Symptoms being lowering pain levels but with your range of motion becoming severely limited. Most people find this to be the hardest phase to cope with.
• Stage three: A thawing phase; Symptoms being as the name implies, a gradual diminishing of the remaining pain along with a freeing up of movement again.

Before we discuss treatment; it’s very important for people with a frozen shoulder to avoid reinjuring the shoulder tissues during the rehabilitation period. These individuals should avoid sudden, jerking motions of or heavy lifting with the affected shoulder.

Now to treatment. We have had tremendous success with Graston Technique. Graston is an innovative, patented form of instrument-assisted soft tissue mobilization that enables clinicians to effectively break down scar tissue and fascial restrictions. The Technique utilizes specially designed stainless steel instruments to specifically detect and effectively treat areas exhibiting soft tissue fibrosis or chronic inflammation. For patients, this means:

• Decreases overall time of treatment
• Fosters faster rehabilitation/recovery
• Reduces need for anti-inflammatory medication
• Decreased pain and increased function
• Improves or completely resolves chronic conditions thought to be permanent

Since the metal surface of the instruments does not compress as do the fat pads of the finger, deeper restrictions can be accessed and treated. When explaining the properties of the instruments, we often use the analogy of a stethoscope. Just as a stethoscope amplifies what the human ear can hear, so do the instruments increase significantly what the human hands can feel.

 

On the average, we have nearly a 75 percent success rate with a 15-week treatment, twice a week.